Getting pretty excited about the Fitbit

February 6, 2013

After attending CES in January and getting more exposure to all of the wearable, fitness-based type of devices (such as the Jawbone UP which I tried for a little while), I decided to go all-in with the Fitbit. I had played with the Fitbit previously and for several reasons, including boredom, lack of bluetooth syncing, and as Louis CK jokes about weighing himself, “I wasn’t doing anything with the information”, I eventually put it down and never picked it back up.

So I got the Fitbit One and the Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale. The Fitbit One does so many things, including measuring steps, miles, stairs, and calories. It also measures your sleep, letting you know how many times you wake up in the night and for how long, plus it will silently wake you up in the morning (cool feature so you don’t wake up your roommate). The Aria Scale is great. It will keep track of your weight and BMI and wirelessly sync that to your Fitbit account.

According to the Fitbit, I don't get consistent sleep. Must have to do with the 4 kids and 2 dogs ;)

And then the mobile app (and website) keeps track of all of this, and you can track your food intake through the app as well. You also get badges but, as I’ve said before, badges smadges.

My favorite aspect is the competitive piece, which allows you to measure yourself against your friends based on # of steps. I only have two other friends right now that I’m connected to, but its already motivated me to pick up my pace and as of this moment, I finally overtook the guy that has been beating me out consistently.

I love the competitive aspect of Fitbit

And now, people are hacking the Fitbit and doing some really cool things. This developer hacked the Fitbit and first tied it to his refrigerator to turn off when he didn’t hit his daily goal, causing his food to spoil. Then he tied it to his TV to not allow him to watch if he didn’t meet his goals. That’s pretty bad#ss.

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Very cool. I love the simplicity of Fitbit. I’m a Nike+ lover myself, but when thinking about applications to other areas of life beyond actual fitness, this is a really cool way to keep track of and gamify it all. Can’t wait to hear how it continues!

Ha, funny thought, but actually I haven’t been able to figure out how to “fix” my problem with sleep (waking up on average 17x a night), so I’m not sure I can game it at all. But the competitive part where you connect with friends is only on steps per day, thankfully.